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Weekly Report from the Board Meeting at Holman Prison 5.31.17

posted by PHADP
on Wed, 05/31/2017 - 11:47

Weekly Report from the Board Meeting at Holman Prison 5.31.17

The Talking Point for Robert Melson, June 8th are on our website at http://www.phadp.org/?q=alerts as well as on our Facebook page. Please if you ever wrote on behalf of any of us to previous Alabama governors or if you are a new friend, now is the time to write, email and to call and our thanks to all those who already did. We are encouraged by Advisory Board Member Judy Collins who shared our appeal with her extensive email list and by all of the actions by our friends at North Alabama University under the guidance of Dr. Katie Owens-Murphy. You are making a difference! A special thank you to the President of AL State Conference of the NAACP, Benard Simelton for his personal appeal to NAACP members to call: PHONE 1-334-242-7100 FAX: 1-334-242-328 Contact form: http://governor.alabama.gov/contact/

We are still in shock over Tommy’s execution last week and as some of you in your messages to us correctly observed it is hard to remain hopeful. Nevertheless that remains our challenge. An hour after watching the execution of her father Tommy Arthur, Sherrie Stone called for a law requiring nationwide mandatory testing of DNA evidence in capital murder cases. We thank her!

The day after the execution there was more bad news for people who care about justice in Alabama. Governor Ivey signed the very unfair Fair Justice Act. American Bar Association President Linda Klein, in a May 12 letter to the Legislature, said the law "will diminish the ability of counsel to provide effective representation and the capacity of courts to deliberate in order to make fair and responsible determinations, increasing the risk of executing an innocent person."

We are working on the next edition of Wings of Hope. As always this is not an easy task especially as the only typewriter on death row is no longer usable. However we are determined to be The Other Voice, our mission as identified by one of our founders Jesse Morrison 29 years ago and so will do our best to compensate for this.